


this must be rare, 'cause nothing else can compare (not that we're aware of)

by Yellow_Bird_On_Richland



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, Long-Distance Friendship, Long-Distance Relationship, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Sunshine Throuple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 00:55:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30131544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland/pseuds/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland
Summary: It all starts because of a pun.Two puns, if you really wanna be precise.
Relationships: Alexis Rose/Twyla Sands, Theodore "Ted" Mullens/Alexis Rose, Theodore "Ted" Mullens/Alexis Rose/Twyla Sands, Theodore "Ted" Mullens/Twyla Sands
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	this must be rare, 'cause nothing else can compare (not that we're aware of)

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title adapted from "Traveling" by Tennis.

"So the catchphrase is: we're doggone good."

Alexis lets out her professional laugh—quick, friendly, not too flirty—at the joke but, luckily, Marty seems like a decent guy and a good client; he doesn't take it for anything more than what it is.

"Alright, then. We'll do a two-week trial run of me running Wag the Tail, Walk the Dog's marketing campaigns," Alexis summarizes based on their discussion as she passes over her standard contract. "First three days are pro-bono."

Marty chuckles as he signs it. "Heh. Pro-bono. Good one."

She frowns for a second before she picks up on her own joke. "Oh. Thanks, Marty."

In the back of her mind, she pictures Ted shaking his head at her in bemusement, almost hears him saying, _"You didn't even realize you made a dog pun? C'mon, Lex."_

It's weird, how little space he takes up in her life now. How she can easily go months without thinking about him.

Alexis can't tell if it's sadness or nostalgia that tugs at her chest on the subway ride home from her meeting. Maybe a hint of loneliness—she's got plenty of acquaintances in New York, but her friends and family are a bit more far-flung. Though, fortunately, Schitt's Creek and David, Patrick, and Twyla aren't too terribly far away.

" _This is so Sleepless in Seattle,"_ she thinks as she pulls up Ted's email, but he'd told her texting would be spotty at best, back when they'd still been trying to keep themselves glued together.

The words almost type themselves. Just a quick message. Nothing serious.

_Hey, Ted. Just wanted to say I made a dog pun today at work and thought of you. Hope all the turtles and lil sea creatures down in your neck of the woods (or, like, the beach?) are happy and thriving!_

_-Lex_

She doesn't anticipate a response right away, or maybe even at all—she has no idea if Ted still checks the personal email account he'd given her.

He emails her back about three weeks later with a short response: _Hey there, Alexis! Things are going swimmingly down here. And how could you not tell me what the pun was?!_

She groans and responds quickly. And the thread of their messages slowly grows from three, to six, to twelve.

It's nice, having Ted as a digital pen-pal.

" _Maybe I could suggest that to Twy. Only, not the digital part, since postage wouldn't be insane for us,"_ she thinks.

Even though they're already in touch nearly every day through texts and Snapchats and the occasional selfie or FaceTime, she'd like seeing Twy's handwriting and contemplating how she neatly forms her part-cursive, part-print letters. She'd enjoy picturing her taking the time to share highlights of her week, or to fill her in on David and Patrick's latest business and/or furniture-related misadventure with Jake.

She loses track of exactly which email number she and Ted are on, but his latest message reads, _We've "upgraded" our Internet. Wanna try a video call sometime soon?_

She replies, _Sure thing!_ about a day later and they manage to work out some free time in their schedules that Saturday—she's surprised she's only two hours ahead of him.

The connection's spotty, but Ted's there, looking about the same as ever (though he's grown his hair out and Alexis might have to roast him a bit for that).

"Hey, Lex."

"Hey, Ted."

Their email exchanges haven't felt stilted, but she's suddenly tongue-tied.

" _Maybe because this is the first time we're doing this since we were dating?"_

Being unable to FaceTime with Ted just because he's an ex feels wrong, though—after all, it's not like he's John Mayer (fuckin' sleazeball).

So Alexis uses an old stand-by, something that will hopefully at least get a chuckle out of him and fix their inability to speak. She points her finger toward his nose, stopping just short of touching her laptop's screen.

She grins. "Boop."

His laughter cracks through whatever residual weirdness was lingering between them, and it's something like old times.

**

Twyla gets out of the shower, throws her pajamas on, fixes her hair up a bit before her FaceTime with Alexis.

It's a habit.

A fucking stupid one, if she's being honest. Thinking her appearance matters that much to her best friend.

She normally likes blasting The Aces as part of her alt-rock mix when she's at spin classes, but today, the chorus to "Stuck" resonated a bit too strongly with her.

She's annoyed at how well it fits her situation with Alexis. How well it fits her life. Or, more accurately, perhaps, how she's only just discovered how well it fits her life.

Twyla's hardly stuck with nowhere to go—she _does_ have access to a cool $40 mil, after all, give or take—but in the important ways, in ways that go beyond money, she's finding it more and more challenging to stay centered, and she's struggling to say if that says more about her or Schitt's Creek itself.

She adores her home, her community—always has, always will—but…

Some almost-nagging part of her wants more.

" _Now if that part of me could just articulate what 'more' is, I'd have much better odds of moving toward it,"_ she groans inwardly. Her normally reliable tarot card readings have turned hazy, only answering small questions she's not really asking.

Twyla pushes her worries away, for now—she'll address them later, after she's gotten the chance to chat with Alexis, because receiving her full attention is downright intoxicating.

"Twy!" Alexis trills after she picks up. "I've missed seeing your beautiful face! Even if it's only on my phone screen."

She tries not to melt at that, tries to avoid wearing her softest smile—the one she'd recognized a while ago belongs mostly to Alexis—but how's she supposed to resist that greeting?

"I've missed seeing you, too, Alexis. How've you been?" she answers, whispering to herself all the while, _"It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything."_

"Good, good. Work's been busy, online dating's a mess, the usual," she lists cheerfully. "Oh, and I got in touch with Ted recently—we've become pen-pals. Or, like, email pals. It's super 90s, such a throwback."

"Oh, that's—that's nice. The Ted thing, I mean, not online dating," she manages to answer as her stomach sinks. "How'd you, um, get in touch with him?"

"Just emailed him!" she replies. "I had a meeting recently with the CEO of a dog-walking business, since there's a crazy robust market for that service here, right?"

Twyla doesn't know, but Alexis' easy tone sweeps her along in her role. "Right. Sure."

"And I made a dog pun without realizing it when I mentioned I'd work pro-bono for him for the first three days, as part of my standard contract, and…"

It's rare that Twyla has to make herself listen to Alexis' stories, but then again, she's usually not berating herself for being so selfish.

" _It's hardly a big deal. So she's reconnected with one of her friends. Well, ex-boyfriend. Still. That's nice, and you know how well she and Ted got along."_

Which is exactly why she's struggling to pay attention, at first, but then they get into their flow of conversation and everything's fine. Alexis mentions something about wanting to be pen pals sometimes "because I wanna _see_ your words, Twy, and how you write them," and she manages to tamp down her smile at the little bit of heightened intimacy there before she agrees, "Yeah, I'd enjoy swapping letters with you. Good suggestion, Alexis."

She's made some progress on penning her first letter—it's mostly about some upgrades she's making at the cafe, along with her first tentative forays into expanding her charitable giving outside of Schitt's Creek—by the time their next call rolls around a couple of weeks later. They're on a loose routine, but it's a routine nonetheless, one they both appreciate.

Her phone buzzes.

"Hey, Lex."

"Hi there, Twy." She glances over Twyla's shoulder to check her background. "You're still at the cafe tonight?"

"Just closed up. I'm taking a break from inventory."

"Look at you go, Twy! My favorite boss babe. Besides myself. Gotta have that self _confidence_ , you know what I mean?"

It's truly unfair, Twyla thinks, how Alexis can make any word in the English language—and some that only exist on its fringes—sound sexy without even trying.

"I do. Sometimes," she hedges.

She's at ease in her skin, sure, but being a boss babe—or, rather, vocalizing her belief that she _is_ one—comes less naturally to her than it does to Alexis.

Lex's eyes narrow a tad at her self-depreciation, and she looks about ready to launch into a zany but undoubtedly well-intentioned speech when her phone buzzes.

"Oh, shoot," she mutters, more to herself than Twyla. "Hey, Twy?"

"Yeah?"

"Would you mind if Ted joined our FaceTime and made it a lil party? I thought he'd be calling, like, an hour later, but I screwed up the time difference."

"Oh. Um…"

Twyla adjusts her smile, tries to relax the tightness she knows has infiltrated it now. Steps back into her customer service mindset for a second before she pops back out with the right answer to the question.

"Sure, that's fine."

"You're the best, hon," Alexis replies happily before she taps her phone and, presto, there's Ted on her screen now, too.

He looks a touch more weather-worn than the last time she'd seen him, but not bad, by any stretch of the imagination.

" _He could maybe use a haircut and a beard trim, but then again, so can most of the general population around here, and they're not off in the Galapagos,"_ Twyla figures.

"Hey, Alexis! And—"

He frowns for a second, registers her face, aims a smile for her, too.

"Hey, Twyla."

"Hi, Ted." Her wave is over-exaggerated even though he probably can't spot that her smile's a bit less bright than usual.

"I thought our FaceTime was gonna be after I got done chatting with Twy," Alexis explains, "but I couldn't do math today, so, here we all are! My favorite FaceTime friends."

Ted realizes something's a bit...off with Twyla's background.

"Twyla, are you at the cafe?" he asks.

"Yep," she confirms.

"Okay, I just wanted to check because the booth you're in looks different. Like, newer."

She perks up a touch at his observation. "Oh, that's because it is. I, um, bought the cafe a while ago. Maybe a month or so after you left, actually. I've been making upgrades here or there."

Ted cocks his head to the side as he asks, "Wait, what?" and Twyla nearly laughs at how the move reminds her of her cousin's Portuguese Water Dog looking curious and confused when they'd brought in new couches from a flea market.

"Oh my God, I can't believe I've been chatting with both of you for however long and I never filled you in on what's been happening in town, Ted!" Alexis chimes in. "Or, like, Schitt's Creek, but I still think of it as 'town,' even though I'm in NYC now. It's just _so quaint_." She steeples her fingers together, tapping them twice for emphasis.

"Well, then, by all means," Ted offers a theatrical sweep of his arm, "share any and all enthralling stories."

"One of the stories is about Twy, though, and I'm not trying to swipe her thunder. Not like when I was at Australian Fashion Week back in 2014 and Christopher Esber _totally_ ripped off this gorgeous little summer dress that Alice McCall had designed. _Such_ a scandal."

Twyla laughs and comments, "No, I don't think you'll be doing that. And anyway, I love how you weave your stories."

"Aww, thank you," she murmurs affectionately before she dives into Twyla's journey to cafe ownership, with Twyla sprinkling in some town gossip and updates here and there and Ted sharing bits and pieces of his Galapagos adventure.

" _Considering I didn't really wanna talk to Ted before, this has turned out to be a pretty good time,"_ Twyla admits to herself.

Having Alexis as something of a bridge between the two of them helps, she notes, as Alexis goes on about some crazy Roland-on-the-road story that Stevie told her the other day.

"Don't get me wrong, Roland's not a bad guy, but _why_ would you inhale four Crunchwrap Supremes before you have to drive for three hours—"

Alexis' voice cuts out, and her eyebrows are stuck near her hairline, frozen in mid-consternation.

"I think we might've lost her," Ted notes.

"Seems like it."

He waits for another second, tries again.

"You there, Lex?"

Hearing Twyla's voice layer over his to ask that question, too, catches Ted off guard. It surprises him, the way his old nickname for Alexis seems to roll off her tongue naturally, like Twyla's spent plenty of time contouring it to the shape of her lips, offering it a new home in her mouth.

She must see him give a bit of a start, because she frowns, asks, "Everything okay, Ted?"

"Yeah. Yeah," he nods. "Just, uh, didn't know you called her Lex, too."

"Yep. I don't remember when I started doing that, exactly. It just kinda happened one day, y'know? And she was all—"

She tosses out an approximation of Alexis' eye pop and shoulder roll, but can't quite pull it off, but Ted nods, just the same.

"Yeah."

"Glad you know what I mean, since I can't really _do_ Alexis—I mean, like, an imitation of her," she stammers her correction.

Ted pointedly looks away from his screen for a second, pretends he's got to check some work thing on his email, pretends he doesn't notice Twyla's blushing.

" _After all, I've been there. Resisting any Rose seems pretty futile."_

He considers, for a second, letting the call go, hanging up with Alexis gone, but something keeps him there, keeps him talking to Twyla.

"So, um, have you done a lot of cafe renovations?"

"Not a ton—you know how people are here, they wouldn't react that well to _too_ much change. But I've made decent headway on giving the place its first facelift since—well, probably since it first opened," she laughs. "I can give you a little tour, if you want?"

"Sure," he agrees.

"So I got the booths reupholstered—Ronnie helped a lot with that—and I got some new tables and chairs…"

The facelift Twyla's describing feels more like full-body reconstructive surgery when she starts showing off the changes, but she's kept the upgrades in line with the cafe's general spirit, such that it was, at least in his mind.

"That's damn impressive," Ted whistles. "And you've expanded the menu, too?"

"Yeah. It's been more work than I initially thought I'd take on, but I've enjoyed it for the most part. I still do waitressing from time to time just to chat with everyone, but it's been nice to not _only_ do that anymore," she admits. "And I'm planning some events with the town and the school district, too."

"Speaking of school...remember when Mr. Baumgartner wanted the cafe to host a Cinco de Mayo party for Spanish class during senior year?" he asks.

Twyla gasps. "Oh my God, I haven't thought of that in forever! And George's buddy who was helping brought alcoholic margarita mix instead of the mocktail stuff—"

"So a bunch of high schoolers ended up accidentally day drinking a little," Ted answers, grinning as Twyla cracks up.

Alexis' voice crackles back in. "Hi, you two! Sorry, don't know why my call dropped. Wasn't sure if you'd still be here."

Ted nods. "Yeah, we were just catching up, remembered some ridiculous high school Cinco de Mayo party. "And Twyla gave me a virtual tour of the cafe, showed me how she's improved it since taking over."

"Ooh, I haven't heard much about those days from either one of you," Alexis muses, her voice insinuating, _"I wanna know more."_

"For good reason," Twyla answers. "We were both pretty big nerds."

"At least you played soccer, Twyla. I was in the chess club," Ted volunteers sheepishly.

"How did I not know this? Leo taught me to play a while ago, I'd totally play you sometime!"

Twyla's frown matches his own.

"Leo?" they chorus.

"DiCaprio," Alexis answers, shrugging like it's nothing because of course she would, and Twyla perfectly mirrors his eye roll and half-exasperated, half-bemused smile at Alexis' casual name-dropping.

Alexis yawns, comments, "I think I'm gonna get ready for bed soon," a few minutes later. "Catch up with you both in a couple weeks? If this, like, group call works?"

He answers first. "We'll have to work out a time, but I'd be down."

"Sure," Twyla confirms. "Could you let me know, Alexis?"

"Will do—or, actually, how about we just add you to our email chain?" she suggests.

"You were right to say this is so 90s the other day. Or week, whatever. Yeah, I'll text you the best one to use."

Alexis beams at her—at both of them, really. Gives them one of her little waves and her trademark not-a-wink wink as she trills, "Bye!"

" _So much for thinking I was totally immune to her charm by now,"_ Ted realizes as they all hang up.

" _Still,"_ he thinks as he starts throwing a white cheddar apple chicken salad together for dinner, _"it's nice to have a friend outside the world of marine biology."_

He contemplates his little chat with Twyla, reflects on how they'd been, if not best friends in high school, then only a couple of pegs below that for each other. Both just outside the orbits of the popular crowd, but not quite deep enough into their extracurriculars to form strong bonds with the peers they'd had in those areas. So between having a handful of classes together and growing up in a small town where not knowing everyone took a supreme effort—much as he'd tried with Mutt at the end of middle school—he and Twyla had sort of naturally fallen in step. Had started looking out for one another. She'd managed to rein in Mutt from picking on him quite so much, and he'd occasionally turn their weekend study sessions at the library into all-day affairs so she could avoid going back to whatever familial mess might await her at home.

But then he'd gone away for college—not that Ontario was horribly far away, but it was a decent drive—and she'd quietly become the matriarch of her messy family, trying to keep trouble away from the second cousins once removed who hadn't found it yet. And somewhere along the way, they'd gone from being friends with each other to just friendly.

After a few months of regular phone calls and emails with Twyla (and Alexis too, of course), that paradigm starts shifting back toward an actual friendship.

" _A digital one, sure,"_ Ted recognizes, _"but that's far better than nothing, especially right now."_

He loves his work, loves his team. Knows he's setting himself up for a ton of career success with his research fellowship, the kind of trajectory he never could've achieved as a small-town vet in Schitt's Creek, much as he'd enjoyed integrating himself into the community like that.

But he can admit: it's easier to deal with the day-to-day mundanities of such a remote existence when he's got a couple of people on the outside who want to hear about island living, too.

**

It happens about five months after Ted comes back.

Not _back back,_ not all the way back to Schitt's Creek, but back to the states, in North Carolina. After countless phone calls and FaceTimes and emails and a quick (too quick) trip that he and Twyla took to NYC on a bit of a lark to visit Alexis.

"So it'll be Twy, Ted, and me versus you three," Alexis, the ring-leader for this little Thanksgiving-adjacent visit, announces after the Town's recreation employee certified they all had at least a basic grasp of curling.

Patrick lifts his eyebrows. "Naturally."

She, Twyla, and Ted all sort of stare at him for that comment, and Alexis answers slowly, "I mean...unless we wanna break up the wedded couple and their shared best friend to make for some friendly marital competition?"

Stevie mutters, "It's nothing, I told you," under her breath to Patrick before loudly answering, "No, thanks, because it'd be anything but friendly. Remember when we played Jackbox when Twyla was visiting you and David won three straight Quiplashes against Patrick?"

Alexis and Twyla wince at the invoked memory.

"Point taken," Alexis agrees, then adds cheerfully, "Well, at least you all can take comfort in each other if you lose."

David snorts. "That's quite the unearned optimistic outlook for your team."

"Excuse you," Alexis replies, "but we've got a former high school athlete," she slings an arm around Twyla, "and the only consistent gym-goer in our group," she does the same to Ted, "plus a former third alternate replacement for the Norwegian Olympic curling team."

Ted and Twyla turn to her, surprised both by this little Alexis adventure—though not _too_ surprised—and by how easily she's established matching touchpoints on their outside shoulders.

David rolls his eyes and hisses, "I still can't believe you went there without inviting me."

She shrugs. "I had to go incognito, so I'm not sure if you would've had too fun of a time."

"Do I even want to know what that means?" Patrick cuts in.

"I used super washed-out makeup and broken English to pass for Scandinavian without much of a problem," Alexis explains. "All I had to do was bounce around different houses in Sochi's Olympic Village, which was kind of a pain, but," she smirks and winks, "I didn't have much of an issue finding athletes willing to offer me a place to crash."

"Much as I want to relive your most likely illegal escapades," David responds pointedly, "we've got a game to win, so let's get started. Do you want to take the first shot, or can we?"

"You can," Alexis gestures toward the rink as she huddles Twyla and Ted around her.

"Have either of you curled before?" she asks, her jaw set.

"Not in a while," Twyla responds, and Ted shakes his head, too.

"Alright, then. I'll go first after Patrick leads off for their team to demonstrate, and we'll go from there."

Ted and Twyla swap a slightly uneasy glance at how Alexis' mouth diminishes to a thin line while she watches Patrick's first throw.

Alexis crouches down, scoops up a rock in one smooth motion, buffs ice off the bottom of it as she explains, all business, "Your approach is more about your stability and core strength than anything. Keeping your body quiet through the push and glide before you actually throw. And it's less of a throw than a release, really, unless you're trying to hit some stones."

Ted nods, a bit dumbfounded at Alexis' sudden, unexpected display of expertise, and he's glad to see a similar look of surprise on Twyla's face.

They watch Alexis line up her shot, and Twyla suddenly remembers, like she's snapped out of a trance, "We need to go down there. To sweep."

"Oh, right. We do."

Patrick shoots them the tiniest shit-eating grin, but Stevie and David are worlds less subtle about their little brain fart, openly scoffing until Alexis huffs and flips all of them off before calling, "Don't listen to them!"

Unfortunately, her voice has a tiny tremor of doubt, too, and Twyla's glad when Ted murmurs, "Is it just me, or is sports captain Alexis a bit...intimidating?"

"That's not a bad word," she admits. "I was thinking intense. But also impressive."

"Those definitely work, too," Ted agrees as Alexis instructs them on where to take up their starting positions.

"This one probably won't need much sweeping, I'm just tossing it out as a blockade," she tells them, and she's right.

And she decides, based on Ted and Twyla's slight wishy-washiness over who's shooting second for them, _"I'm gonna steer this ship to shore."_

"Twy, how would you feel being our second? And Ted, you can maybe clear out some messes as our third in this round and we'll go from there?"

She adds the tiniest uptick to both statements to turn them into questions, to allow for other options, but again...she knows when she's right, and she spent so much of her life searching for the wrong highs, the wrong guys, the wrong friends, the wrong escapes, that she clings to right-ness in any form with more of a death grip than even she realizes once in a while. With her nails sunk in deep.

" _It's just a game, Alexis,"_ she reminds herself as they both nod, as Twyla approaches her with a hint of trepidation. _"Even if it's a game where I could beat David."_

She wills herself to calm down, to just enjoy the day, to enjoy the company of her friends and family. Or at least the company of her teammates, for now.

" _I can start there,"_ she thinks as she focuses on releasing the tension from her shoulders, to putting Twyla at ease.

"Ready to do this, Twy?"

She nods slowly, still the slightest bit hesitant. "I think so."

Alexis waves away her uncertainty. "You'll be great. With all the yoga you do? You've totally got the body for a good foundation for curling."

Twyla's cheeks are pink as she shyly murmurs, "Thanks, Lex," but that's gotta just be from the cold, right?

She crouches down next to Twyla once she's retrieved a rock, watches her practice her push off, covers her right hand with her own to guide hers in how she should swing the stone forward, in how she should release it.

"You got this?" Alexis nearly whispers, suddenly all too aware that she's all too close to Twyla, that their breaths are almost mingling in the air, that she's invading her personal space, but Twyla simply nods once, asserts, "I've got this," back to Alexis, with a quiet confidence befitting her boss babe status.

Her shot goes a bit off-kilter, but Alexis doesn't mind, just smiles serenely back to Twyla—as if _that's_ ever any work—and calls, "Nice effort! Good fundamentals."

Ted seems to have a bit more of a grasp on what to do, but Alexis feels oddly compelled to offer him some assistance, too.

" _Just being fair, really, helping both of them on the first try,"_ she figures.

"Loosen your grip a little," she instructs him quietly, and her hand covering his, the feel of his arm flexing the slightest bit at her touch, has Alexis flashing back to all the casual contact through their flamed-out courtship, on his couch, in his bed, in his kitchen on the rare instances they cooked together, and—

"Is this better?" he asks, turning to look at her.

"Yeah. Yeah, that feels better," she answers, then tells him what she told Twy: "You got this."

He nods, gives her a thumbs up. "Ready to rock."

She shakes her head in disbelief at the pun, barely resists the urge to smack him on the arm like she would've, once upon a time.

His throw, too, ends up a good deal off of where he'd aimed, but Alexis is okay with it, is fine with her focus on winning slipping away and melting.

Their team mostly struggles—she's not on her A-game, either—but they have a couple of stellar moments.

Like when Twyla threads the needle on a truly audacious attempt.

Stevie gasps, "That's some witchcraft-y bullshit," as it's happening.

But she, David, and Patrick can only watch as Twyla's carefully thrown stone splits the small gap between their blockade and knocks into one of their own, and Ted and Alexis sweep them both hard enough to sneak them just inside the house.

"Two points for us. Group celly!" Alexis shouts gleefully as she and Ted half-skate, half-slide back down toward where they're all throwing, and she's reveling in the three of them colliding, the moment of warmth of their bodies all pressing together.

"Group celly?" David snorts with disdain. "Tell me, Alexis, where exactly did you learn to so brutally butcher the English language?"

"It's hockey slang, David, and we're playing a game on ice. It's a close enough comparison," she dismisses him.

He gestures wildly to Patrick and Stevie in frustration. "We lived in Canada for five years and I don't think you knew what a puck was. So _now_ you get into hockey? I'm so confused—just—what the hell?"

She shrugs. "Interflix buys box seats to Rangers games every once in a while and it's an easy potential talking point with my own marketing clients."

Twyla pipes up, "Alexis contains multitudes, David," like it's the most obvious fact in the world.

Probably because it is. To her, at least.

She can't help but laugh at David's stunned face, at his irritation that his own two teammates are laughing now, too, but she stops paying attention to them when Alexis lightly squeezes her shoulder as they start planning out their next shot.

"Made up of multitudes," she muses, then beams at her. "Love that description for me. Thanks, babe."

Twyla tries to brush that little term of endearment off the same way she does with snow on the roof of her car during winter—easily, automatically, unconsciously.

She can't.

**

The three of them stop by David and Patrick's afterwards for a drink, and it seems like that should just about conclude their day (and a good portion of the night) as they all walk out the front door together.

Until Twyla voices a shared opinion.

"I'm feeling kinda peckish."

"Okay, so it's not just me who was trying to will David and Patrick to order a pizza or something?" Ted asks, to headshakes from both the girls.

"We could go…" Alexis ventures hopefully, but she's not sure where her sentence will lead.

Twyla finishes it for her, jangling her keys.

"Special service for three at the cafe," she comments with a smile. "Meet you there."

One of the perks of small-town living: most drives are ten minutes, max.

They all meet there at just about the same time, Twyla leading the way as she unlocks the door, flicks the lights on, and connects her phone to the new speakers.

Ted chuckles a bit at that. "Never thought I'd see the day that the old Cafe Tropical would have Bluetooth."

"We're slowly joining the 21st century," Twyla notes with a laugh.

"Not to dismiss all the amazing improvements you've made here over the years, Twy," Alexis comments, "but as far as food goes...I could _totally_ fuck up a grilled cheese and some fries right now."

"Make that two," Ted adds over his grumbling stomach.

"Thirded. That sounds good, I'll get on it," Twyla promises.

"Oh—I thought—"

Alexis trails off, unable to explain why she suddenly feels like she's too much.

"Thought what?" Twyla asks. "Was there something else you had in mind, Lex?"

"No, I was thinking—we could all cook them together. Having you make them feels like you're waiting on us," she responds quietly. "And I don't want that. If—if we're allowed in the kitchen, that is," she tacks on, trying to suss out why this feels like such a big deal. She's trespassed into plenty of places with higher stakes than her best friend's cafe, so why is her heart pounding so hard?

"I'm not sure—lemme check with the manager." Twyla taps her foot on the floor for a second, pretends to think, and grins at them. "Yeah, she says it's fine. C'mon back."

Ted considers the whole cafe from their new vantage point as they all shuffle behind the counter. "You've really done well with the place, Twy."

"Thanks! And the kitchen's no longer a total mess _or_ a health hazard anymore! From disorganization, not anything to do with the food," she adds hastily as she fires up the grill and the oven. "Now, in terms of fries, what were you thinking, Alexis? We've got a few options."

No answer.

"...Alexis?"

Her eyes ping-pong back and forth between Ted and Twyla.

"Sorry, I'm just—I'm used to Twy being my nickname, I guess," she replies, making a show of inspecting the different types of bread she could use, "but it sounded nice coming from you, too, Ted."

One of their stomachs grumbling makes the moment crack before it crystallizes into something they might need to address.

Alexis turns to Twyla. "Sorry. You were saying there are different options for fries?"

"Yeah—um, regular, curly, or crinkle-cut. I'm leaning toward curly."

"I'd like them, too," Ted answers as he grabs a few paper plates out of a pantry, along with napkins.

Alexis nods, as well. "Sounds good to me."

Twyla retrieves a couple of different bread options, followed by herbs and spices, then gets some cheese out from the fridge.

"Ooh, someone's getting fancy over here," Alexis comments, side-stepping to get past Ted to get butter.

"It's the classic Sands family grilled cheese recipe," Twyla answers proudly. "Italian bread and Havarti, plus garlic and onion powder and a couple pieces of shredded Mozzarella cheese on each top side of the sandwich."

Ted notes, as he flips his sandwich, "I can't remember the last time I made grilled cheese for myself, but I'm so looking forward to this."

They settle in on the bar stools, eating in companionable silence, fingers occasionally brushing as they dig into the communal basket of fries.

They drag the night out, sharing two slices of chocolate cake with three forks, though none of them can exactly say why. Nor can they say why there's something like disappointment hanging in the air as Twyla walks the two of them out.

They've visited before, but the ending's never felt so final.

"So—you're both leaving tomorrow afternoon, right?"

Two slow nods.

"Well," Twyla hugs Alexis, then Ted, "safe travels, and we'll have to all do this again soon."

"Yeah," she murmurs.

"Definitely," Ted concurs.

And yet, neither of them move toward their cars.

The inaction tips Twyla over the edge. Into moving. Into doing.

If she regrets this, at least it'll taste different than all the bitter disappointment she's swallowed down over the years.

She registers shock transforming into something sharp, into desire, in Alexis' gaze as she steps toward her.

Alexis blinks once—a hard, quick twitch—as if trying to clear cobwebs from her vision. "Twy?"

"Yeah?"

She thinks—she hopes—that framing her answer that way, with a hint of aggression to her tone, a note of urgency, will be enough.

"Yeah."

Alexis is nodding, and suddenly they're cupping each other's faces with their hands, imbuing their turn toward intimacy with soft meaning, and Twyla's first-ever kiss with Alexis Rose is the best possible "fuck you" to all the almost-moments she hadn't been brave enough to grab before.

She breathes out, "Finally," afterwards, feels something like relief flood her veins, feels Alexis grinning against her lips.

They lean away from each other the tiniest bit because this sequence isn't made for the two of them alone.

"I'm—I'm sorry, have I been misreading things—"

Alexis turns to consider an awkward, mumbling, red-faced Ted, tugs lightly on the arm of his jacket to pull him nearer, angles herself back to Twyla for a second.

"Mmm, I don't think so." Her voice is husky despite her light tone. "What about you, Twy?"

She shakes her head in a daze, feels her pulse accelerate from a cantor to a gallop as Ted's eyes flicker up from the ground to Alexis' face.

Of all the times she's seen the two of them kiss, this is the first time she's wanted to watch, wanted to study the sight, the lead-up.

They possess familiarity, despite the years apart. An ease and tenderness borne by knowing, in rediscovering a fit together.

Alexis loops her arms around Ted's neck while he's got one hand curled possessively at her waist and the other raking through her hair as their lips meet and their mouths open and, okay, yes, Ted's definitely an excellent kisser.

They break apart before too long—Ted appears blissfully confused and Alexis looks winded in a way Twyla's never witnessed. After a few seconds, though, she's suddenly got a hand on the small of each of their backs, ever so gently pushing them toward each other.

"Now you two," she encourages them gently, but firmly, rather like Moira insisting they polish their accents during Cabaret rehearsals.

The way Alexis presents the two of them kissing—almost as a command, or a foregone conclusion—helps Twyla split the distance in half and then some.

It doesn't hurt that Ted steps forward, too. That he's so solidly _here_ for her, pulling her in close.

"Remember when we nearly kissed at Billy Palisano's grad party? After we both jumped in the pool?" he murmurs, a hint of a smile playing in the twitch of his lips.

She can practically feel Alexis shimmy at that little reference to past-Twy-and-Ted and laughs—a breathless sound. "Yeah. I kinda like this situation better, though."

He nods, whispers, "Same here."

Twyla's standing as tall as she can as Ted ducks low to kiss her with certainty. With a carefully cultivated warmth that suggests he's thought about this during the past handful of months, too, and the idea somehow helps her relax and turns her on all at once.

They pull back, the winter air nearly crystallizing the shaky breaths rising in the short space between them.

"So…"

Alexis' voice is unnaturally quiet, the tiniest bit wrecked and wracked with want, as she steps closer to the two of them.

"I think we've got something here." Her hands flutter around in a circle as if she's casting a ward to protect them. "Like, all three of us."

It's not a question.

Beach House is still playing over the speakers in the cafe, and as she and Ted nod silently, as Alexis brings her arms around both of them, Twyla can just make out the looping background vocals in the outro, not quite buried beneath the synth and guitar soundscape:

_Sparks, come alive._

_Sparks, come alive._

_Smoke, there's a fire._

_Smoke, there's a fire._


End file.
